


Potatoes and Powers That Be

by cousininthebronx



Category: The Martian - All Media Types, Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: Don't know if I'll do the full book, Gen, Gonna write at least a few chapters of this, Mars hates Mark and wants him to die, Might bring in or reference some actual YW characters at some point
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2018-10-28 07:10:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10826337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cousininthebronx/pseuds/cousininthebronx
Summary: It's the same old Mark Watney we know and love, in the same awful situation. Except this time, he's a wizard!





	1. Log Entry: Sol 6

I might be fucked. Probably.

See, I was right in the middle of making a little bit of personal history. First-ever wizard to go to Mars and have the whole world know about it. Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Wizard? Whatever happened to this guy, it clearly frazzled his brain!” Well, actually, no. You aren’t thinking that, because anyone who can read this log, instead of the “official” version, is also a wizard. But, c’mon, I almost just died. Cut me some slack on my strawman voices.

Oh, yeah. I almost just died. Don’t worry, I’m not glossing over that. I’ve got a big dilemma in front of me, and almost-dying is, as you might expect, pivotal to that. So. Ares 3. Humanity’s third Mars mission, and the first to include a wizard! There are more of us than you might expect at NASA. Hell, Neil Armstrong was one! “One small step for man,” my ass! Every wizard I know has been to the Moon at least a dozen times by the time they turn 20. Wait. Sorry. Ares. I’m writing this log after pulling an antenna out of my guts, so the Vicodin is making me ramble.

Ares 3: Great personal history, but, in the grand scheme of NASA, probably not really going to be all that notable. How much have you heard about Apollo _13_ , after all?

Yeah, yeah, I know. Don’t worry, the Vicodin hasn’t completely messed my brain up. That was just me fucking with you. It’s an apt comparison, though. Ares 1 and Apollo 11, they broke new ground, the first missions to somewhere humanity had never been before. Ares 2 and Apollo 12, they were, you know, fine, I guess. Still some novelty, because, holy shit, it’s the Moon and Mars, but I’d be willing to bet you don’t know the names of Apollo 12’s crew without research. And then, we have Ares 3 and Apollo 13. Gonna be even less notable than the second mission, until everything goes to shit. Apollo 13 had a happy ending. I hope this does, too.

It was a pretty normal morning today. As normal as any morning on Mars can be for a human, anyway. I wanted to sleep in, but Commander Lewis tries to enforce Navy discipline and NASA scheduled every damn minute of our mission, so I had to get up. After a disappointing space-breakfast, Lewis, Vogel, and I all went out to collect soil samples while Martinez made sure the MAV was still upright. Good thing it was, actually, because while we were engaged in the _fascinating_ process of digging up dirt and putting it in bags, a sandstorm rolled over a distant ridge and Johansen got on comms to summon us all back to the Hab so we could read NASA’s latest update. Turns out the storm was going to be worse than anyone expected, and NASA told us to scrub the mission. It sucked. We all grumbled, but we had to get our suits on and launch before the storm tipped the MAV over. I would have tried to talk the storm down or convince it to miss us, but A, storms are really, really stubborn, and B, when the Hab has less square footage than your average Chicago apartment, it’s impossible to get enough privacy to talk the weather down.

Denied any chance of secretly saving everyone’s asses, I suited up and followed everyone into the airlock. That’s when everything went to shit. Commander Lewis opened the external door and the blast of sand and wind damned near knocked her off her feet. Everyone following closely behind each other, holding on to a common tether, we slowly, carefully trudged our way to the MAV. That is, until a particularly nasty gust picked up a comms antenna and sent it arrowing through the air right into my guts. The impact knocked me off my feet and I blacked out. Given that the MAV was gone when I woke up, I assume everyone else survived. I’m glad. I staggered back to the Hab, got out of my suit, and stitched myself up. Now… here I am.

I’m alone. On Mars. Fuck.

Sorry, that just really hit me for a second there. So. What do I do now? I’m not sure. The Vicodin is kicking my ass a bit, so I’m gonna go think about this and sleep. I dunno about you, but I think that a nigh-fatal impalement entitles me to some extra sleep.


	2. Log Entry: Sol 7

Okay. I’ve recovered a bit and I don’t want to die every time that I move, so it’s time for me to really dig into my chances here, and the dilemmas I’m facing. Y’see, most people, even most astronauts, who woke up in the situation I woke up in today? They’d be fucked. Full-stop, no chance, do not pass Go, do not collect $200, just fucked. But me? Well, I’m a mechanical engineer. And I’m a botanist. Those help, but the reason that I’m not automatically dead? Well, I’m a wizard. And I know that anyone who’s reading this log is a wizard too, but, c’mon, I’ve always wanted to tell my story like this to someone who doesn’t know anything about wizardry, so I’m going to pretend you don’t, okay? If you don’t like it… Well, fuck off, I’m trapped on Mars, I can set my own rules.

Now, you’d think “Well, he’s a wizard! He has all kinds of powers! He’ll be fine!” and, yes, if I was willing to expend a lot of my energy and such, I could easily survive here. Hell, I could fire up a transit spell and be back on Earth before my mission-mates up there on the Hermes. The problem with that is, Earth is what’s known as a _sevarfrith_ planet, which is a planet that has wizards, but the dominant cultures don’t know about wizardry and any wizards have to be secretive about what they do. So, I’m between a rock and a hard place.

There’s a lot that I could do to survive this, but NASA thinks I’m dead, and they have a network of satellites orbiting and photographing Mars regularly. Anything I do outside of the Hab, they’ll see it. Anything I do in the Hab… Well, what the fuck can I do in the Hab? And while I can communicate with other wizards through my wizard’s manual (conveniently disguised, for this mission, as a D&D 5th Edition Monster Manual, because I love the classics and I was goddamned determined to use our days off to convince the rest of the crew to play D&D on Mars, because who wouldn’t want to play D&D on MARS?), all of the electronic communication devices were either wiped out by the storm or lifted off the planet with the MAV.

So, let me run that down. I have a finite food supply. I’m incommunicado. I’m alone. I’m trapped. And I have the power to fix all of those things, but if I use it, then I break a rule that’s stood for centuries. I’m gonna need some advice on this.


	3. Log Entry: Sol 8

Well. That went… interestingly. I was nervous, trying to get in touch with the Planetary Wizard of Earth, but, given that at the moment I don’t have a local advisory… or, well, come to think of it, a local _anyone_ , I was her responsibility. Plus, given that the question of my survival might weigh on the practice of wizardry around the entirety of Earth, she needed to be consulted. So that’s how I found myself talking to Earth’s Planetary. Highest-ranking wizard on the whole planet, trusted with information and abilities that I could never dream of. And she’s younger than me! C’mon!

I pulled out my manual and, because of the distance, requested a text chat. With Nita Callahan. Frankly, I was expecting her to turn me down, because why would some random wizard be contacting her without going through the proper channels? But when she immediately accepted, I remembered. I’ve been stranded here for a couple of sols. They must have announced it on Earth by now, because they have no reason to think I’m alive. Hell, maybe she accepted so quick because it spooked her to hear from me.

So, anyway, conversation. Nita, she’s a great wizard. I’ve seen précis for a handful of the things she did before she became planetary, and, wow. Stuff out of a movie or a book series (says the astronaut wizard stuck on Mars). For all that, I kind of expected her to be… Not aloof, exactly, because in my experience wizards are never aloof, but… I don’t know. She’s Earth’s highest-ranking wizard and she has the kind of history that would make anyone blanch. But also…

She’s a total sweetheart. When the text connection firmed up, she was immediately asking how I’m feeling, how I’m alive, y’know, all the stuff that you’d expect to be asked by someone who really cares, when they find out someone isn’t dead. I gave her a rundown of what happened, somewhat more formally than the rundown in this log, and asked her advice. And the connection crapped out. Because of course it did. And then, when I went to reconnect, I noticed something in my manual.  I’m marked as on active status now. Normally, when something like this mission was happening, I’d be marked as “Sabbatical/emergencies only.”

I’m on active status.

Why the fuck am I on active status?

Normally, that means that there’s some kind of problem going on, and wizards are available to work on it. Preferably, the best-suited wizard for this particular problem.

I’m the only wizard on the planet. Now I’m on active status. I guess I’m the best wizard for the problem. But what the hell’s the problem? I’m the only wizard here. I’m the only _person_ here. There used to be Martians. Not many folks know that. Hell, even most wizards don’t know it, but, yeah, there used to be Martians. Key wording there: _used to be._ The Shamaska-Eilitt, they’re gone. After an intervention by Nita Callahan and her partner, in fact. Since that was taken care of, Mars has been as dead as… Well, as dead as Earth thinks I am.

Yeah, I’m not dead, but, apparently, neither is the planet! Something’s going on here, and I have to take care of it.  And now, I can’t get in contact with anyone. And I _still_ don’t know how the fuck I’m supposed to survive! Goddammit.


End file.
